


just a day (just an ordinary day)

by Coshledak



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Non-Divorce, Nuclear Fallout, Post Nuclear-War, Post-Movie, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 20:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coshledak/pseuds/Coshledak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And the only thing we know is things don't always go the way we planned” – The Lion King 2, “We Are One”</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a day (just an ordinary day)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for **the-506th** on tumblr, courtesy of **zimothy** 's Secret Santa. The prompt I chose was: "Post-apocalyptic nuclear AU where they were able to kill Shaw but failed to stop the Cuban Nuclear War."
> 
> The picture provided was this one: http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/10361261753/1/tumblr_lrpk7cMA661r2sb5f
> 
> But I also took elements of this one: http://i39.tinypic.com/2a77rr8.jpg (couldn't resist having Charles' eyes glow).
> 
> Sorry if it's vague/doesn't make sense/doesn't have much plot. A mixture of PocketFrogs and “A Brand New Day” from the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog soundtrack got me through this.
> 
> I'm still not sure how...
> 
> Not to mention constant insisting from some very choice people, namely **McKenna/fromparriswithlove**. I also have to thank my dad for helping me. It turns out he was stationed on a nuclear submarine during the height of the Cold War.
> 
> Title taken from the Vanessa Carlton song “Ordinary Day.”

The first thing he registers in the morning, like clockwork, is the chill. It's not from the bunker—they heat it—but from Erik, which is saying something. Erik, who has always been the warmer of the two of them, is suddenly a cool weight pressed against his back, a cool arm slung around his waist, but ironic warm breath against the back of his neck. He pulls the blankets higher around both of them, earning a slight hike of that wintry arm around his middle. Erik pulls him closer, tucks his nose against his neck. Charles shivers, the grip loosens.

“No,” he murmurs, reaches down to find Erik's hand and pull it tighter around him. “Don't.”

“I'm—”

“I know, Erik, and I'm telling you: don't.”

There's a split second where he thinks they'll argue, and he doesn't want to. He never wants to, but sometimes fights are picked and verbal battles fought. Thankfully, not today. Erik's arm tightens again and Charles settles back into the expanse of chest, urging his body heat to heighten it from cool to tepid. He doesn't shiver this time.

Erik's breath breezes, pleasant, against the back of his neck, escapes into the pockets of space down his shoulders. He's tense for a moment longer, but eventually he relaxes, and Charles relaxes with him. They probably won't fall back asleep, but they can enjoy this for a little while longer; they've earned that much.

Charles stares straight ahead, at the hanging white sheet that marks off this section of the bunker as theirs. There isn't much in it—a lamp in the corner that's unlit, a small stack of empty cans, a few figurines and pointless shapes that other cans have long since been turned into—but his eyes trail over all the items. There's lotion, a mostly-used tube of lubricant that makes him smile a little bit for a reason that he can't unearth from the depths of his mind. Maybe the irony, he thinks. Living in a bunker, but having regular sex. He'd always imagined sex—lubrication, for that matter—would be a luxury.

It probably was, if he thought about it, but, then, 'luxury' had always been at his fingertips, hadn't it? His life wasn't easy, but he could admit that sometimes luxury and entitlement blurred.

But he doesn't think about it; he doesn't want to. Instead he scans his mind over the others residing with them—Alex, Hank, Sean, Raven and Moira—all still sleeping. Like them, they would be awake soon, but they aren't yet.

Erik's fingers stroke over his stomach, languid, and Charles tips his head to the side to look over his shoulder towards him. Erik shifts, encouraging, and he takes the opportunity to roll over. He burrows against Erik's chest, more like steel now than ever before, and not just in the musculature. Smooth, toned, gray-tinted—he's like the tin-man, but he doesn't need oil for his joints to keep him going.

Well, not beyond the kind Charles can provide with sweet words and light kisses to coax him into functioning for the day—the hour—the minute—the rest of their lives.

“How do you feel?” Erik asks, fixing his attention down at him. His eyes are almost alarmingly grey in the dimmed lights.

“Perfectly fine,” Charles replies. He runs his hand up Erik's side, slides it to his back and rests his palm over the sharp angle of a shoulder blade. This time it's Erik who shivers a bit but pulls them tighter together. Charles smiles, wide. “And you?”

He grunts a reply, a suitable enough one, that he usually has on days like today. Days that they both look forward to if only because there's nothing else to look forward to anymore. Charles' smile softens and he leans forward, steals Erik's lips, and holds them. Erik lets him, rolls onto his back and pulls Charles on top of him until his knees are pressed into the too-flimsy mattress under them.

They kiss—Erik's mouth is hot and wet and nothing like his body—until they can't breathe. Then Charles pulls back, nuzzles at his neck and jaw, buries his face against his hair and draws in his scent, deep into his being. He keeps it there, like he can lace Erik into his genes the way the radiation has. Maybe he could lace his genes back, give Erik some of his warmth.

“Let's not go out,” he whispers, nipping at Erik's ear. He can tell it takes all of Erik's control not to groan, but if he does then the kids will be awake in an instant and griping about it.

“We have to,” Erik mutters, and Charles knows it's true even if he doesn't want to admit it.

Still, they both let themselves enjoy it for a while longer. He licks a wet stripe up Erik's throat, to that soft spot at the back of his ear, and teases it until he feels Erik's deep consideration to yield pulsing along his mind. It's nice to win, even if winning won't be leading anywhere.

They aren't startled to hear people stirring beyond the thin veil of sheet, but it does pull them more and more into the awareness of the day. They have responsibilities this morning, and it doesn't do to put them off any longer than they absolutely have to. Charles tries to be optimistic as he pulls on his jeans and a T-shirt, both of which have seen better days.

“Morning,” Raven says, passing him a mug of coffee. He immediately passes it to Erik not because of any aversion to coffee but because Erik needs it more than he does. Charles is nothing short of amiable in the mornings—it came from years of early classes—whereas Erik is not. He's learned the joys of being able to sleep in and has no intention of letting them go any time soon.

“Good morning,” he replies, smiling. Raven gives him one in return, but he can tell that she's a bit wary. They all are on mornings like this. “Is Hank awake?”

She scoffs, and that sounds far more like the sister he knows and loves. “I hardly think he sleeps anymore.”

Erik lets out a huff of laughter behind him, but Charles just shakes his head. It's hardly healthy for Hank to avoid sleep the way that he does, but Charles supposes that he can't argue it. He was just as fascinated about Hank's findings as the man himself was. That doesn't, however, excuse him not getting proper rest.

While Erik and Raven chat, he wanders between the other sheet-marked rooms to find the one that is something of a make-shift lab for Hank's work. There's no way to _knock_ on a sheet, so he just calls ahead and waits for Hank to allow him in.

The lab is hardly the impressive set-up he had given Hank when they lived Above, but he's made due with what they have. Much of the contents of the lab had been destroyed in the collapse, but in their mad rush to move things to the bunker, a few things had been saved. Some beakers, some equipment. Charles vaguely remembers a storm of metal things hovering around Erik in the night, floating around him like a dust-cloud of anything his powers could attach to. He was like a magnet.

None of the big things were salvaged, of course, but Hank is used to operating on low-budget from before working for the CIA. He was pleased to have a lab at all, given the fact they ran on generator power.

“How are things coming?” Charles asks, attempting to sound jovial despite the fact his friend is likely surveying his or Erik's blood under that microscope.

“Oh, good morning, Charles.” Hank doesn't quite startle, but he sits up in a jerky motion. Charles smiles, hoping it will ease him. The fact that it succeeds in its purpose means that whatever Hank is looking at doesn't bare any bad news. He finally catches up on the question: “Nothing to report.”

“That's a shame.” Except it isn't; it's a relief. He can tell that Hank feels the same way even without the empowered empathy that permeates the bunker.

He stands just as Charles sits down and walks over to a rickety set of shelves, scavenged from the wreckage of the mansion almost three months ago now. Already Hank has managed to fill them with his meager supplies and journals; he takes down two of the spiral notebooks, one green and one black, and walks back over to take a seat. Charles watches him flip the green one open first.

Pages upon pages are lined with data in Hank's messy lab-scratch. He can write neatly when he needs to, but his notes are practically a language of his own. The colors of ink blur immediately, changing as pens died and new ones were acquired no matter their tip or shade. He finally stops on a page only half-full of information and scribbles down the date.

“Any changes?”

Two words, but they're a cue to let even the slightest anatomical or biological shifts in him pour out. Getting information from Erik is like pulling teeth; Charles does his best to make it easy on him when it's his turn.

He explains that the headaches have simmered down and that his eyesight is fine. He tells him that he's coming into control of his telepathy again, though he isn't sure if that's his mind adjusting or the radiation wearing down. So far 'nothing to report' meant that there was little to go off of, it could have been either. For all they knew, he could have been dying, but they had no equipment to properly tell and Charles wasn't going to think about it. Not when he and the others had survived the past six months just fine, thank you.

He drops hints about Erik as he talks, hints that Hank omits from his notes but holds in his mind, hints that will lead him in the right direction of questions to ask Erik. It's invaluable that he give Hank those hints because, otherwise, he'll have no clue how to properly go about making sure that Erik isn't suffering any worse effects.

His before check-up is done in roughly fifteen minutes, and Charles isn't too surprised to find Erik standing outside, chatting quietly with Alex, when he emerges.

“Morning, Prof,” Alex says. “Anything turned up?”

He flicks his eyes to Erik when he shakes his head, watches him visibly relax. He passes over the half-empty mug of coffee, cooling but not cold, before heading in for his own meeting with Hank. Charles gives his attention back to Alex.

“Did you and Sean come up with your lists?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, unusually sheepish. It's to be expected. “You know, Prof, you guys don't have to—”

“We know, Alex.” They do. “But we'd just like an idea of what to prioritize bringing back if we happen to find it.”

Alex is used to living off of little, and it's always felt strange for him to take things when offered. But he's grown used to it, in some senses, because he has to. They've all grown used to things they have to in order to survive.

Alex gives him a stiff nod, the closest he can come to a proper thank you at this hour, and ducks back into his room. “We'll have them for you in a bit, yeah?”

“No need to rush,” he smiles.

Raven is sitting by the coffee maker when he returns to their make-shift living area, which is a mix of their kitchen and a living room. She's fiddling with the radio knobs.

“You know that it's his powers that make it work.” He's half asking. She laughs.

“Yeah, I know. But I keep hoping I'll be able to hit a sweet spot or something.”

He takes a seat next to her and finishes the rest of the coffee before it gets too chilled; Raven is nursing her own mug, balanced on her knee with her fingers threaded through the handle. She gives up when he sits down and turns towards him, leaning back against the cool wall.

He's used to the blue by now, just like he's gotten used to the lack of clothes—another of those 'gotten used to it in order to survive' things—because she stays just as warm this way. The bunker is heated, but it's chilly rather than comfortable or warm. Raven's powers enable her to adjust to a wide variety of temperatures, but it works better when she hasn't shifted her skin to something vulnerably human.

He's realized now just how beautiful she is this way, and regrets ever making her hide, even if he knew it was the best idea at the time.

“How's he doing?” She asks after a moment. Charles flicks his eyes to her before looking back at his mug again. “You know, you could let two of us—”

“We're not doing that.” He remains rooted to the decision that they weren't going to let any of the children—and bugger it if they weren't _technically_ children—go out there. It didn't matter how many months past, none of them were going out until they knew the radiation levels had gone down.

Raven's been in this argument before. Enough times to sigh and give up before it turns into a more intense argument. It would be an argument that she lost anyway, so there wasn't much point in fighting it. Even if she managed to reason with him, she'd never get past Erik. None of them would.

“It isn't as though anything dangerous happens anyway,” he continues. “So long as we alternate the exposure, Erik and I are safe—”

“Yeah. That's why your eyes _glow blue_ and Erik's one oil can short of being the Tin Man.”

“ _Regardless,_ ” he presses. “It's best that as few people as possible get contaminated at a time.”

And maybe the ruins above ground just aren't a world he wants to expose any of them to yet. Not until he's made sense of it, at least.

They lapse into a silence that starts off somewhat tense but eases in its own time. They're chatting about the items on Raven's list when Erik joints them, rolling down the sleeve of his turtleneck. His skin looks even more gray in comparison to the purple turtleneck, but Charles is used to it by this point.

“All clear?” He pushes himself up as he asks and sets the coffee mug off to the side for someone's chores later. Erik gives him a nod and their eyes meet for a moment. It isn't a romantic flight of fancy that leaves them locked together so much as an a lifetime of understandings compressed into one minute and less than a year of knowing each other. If that doesn't speak to a deeper connection, Charles doesn't know what would.

They hang around near the door—joined by Hank and Raven—until Alex shows up. Sean trails behind him, still tired, but he isn't about to miss seeing them head out for the day. They take everyone's lists and Charles hugs Raven before Erik opens the thick, too-many-times reinforced door. He's probably the only one who could open it besides Hank.

A dreary light is leaking from the stairway across the hall, but they ignore it for the moment. Instead Charles starts shucking on the pair of dense overalls and pea coat waiting for him. Both are slightly too large, but they don't get in his way and they manage their purpose. He's never seen what he looks like in the getup, but he imagines it's somewhat ridiculous; the overalls are sort of tan and the coat is black, which seems enough of an indication. But given that they accomplish their point, it doesn't matter how he looks. Certainly no one else will care.

Erik is offering him a respirator before he finishes the last two buttons and slips his gloves on. He pinches the brim of the newsboy cap between his fingers as he pulls the straps over his head, adjusts it and tightens it. He looks up at Erik before tapping one of the filters and Erik nods. They can talk in them, of course, and even if they couldn't, Charles _is_ a telepath, but sometimes it's nice to communicate without words.

Cool arms find their way around his waist while he's adjusting his hat, and for a moment Charles is baffled by it. After all, venturing out into the Wasteland isn't the end of the world—that happened some months ago—so this hardly seems necessary. But there's a look in Erik's eyes that stops him from immediately teasing. Instead he blinks. He closes his eyes when Erik leans down, the press of their foreheads awkward together with his hat already in place, but they manage.

He gives Erik a mental brush of encouragement, squeezes his hips when his hands find them, and stands there until he pulls away. He pulls on his gloves while Erik tugs on his flat cap, grabs one of the battered backpacks from the corner.

\------------------------ 

In the late morning light, Beacon looks like it's a dilapidated utopia. The relatively small city had always been quaint in a New York sort of way, and Charles remembered passing through it on a few occasions throughout his life. Like the mansion, it managed to escape the physical blast that hit above New York City, but that doesn't say much. The hurricane force winds have demolished much of it.

It's not that many miles from Westchester to Beacon, but it's long enough to appreciate the effort when there aren't methods of conventional transportation. The most comforting thing about the journey is Erik's mind. He'll never admit it, but he takes immense relief in the fact that the nuclear fallout hasn't damaged the magnetic poles of the Earth. Granted, they'll change in their own time, but for now they aren't so distorted that his powers are beyond use. Charles doesn't want to think about how their world would be if that had happened.

One of these days they're going to have to venture beyond the boarders of the state, beyond the Burroughs now long devoid of life, but for now they don't. For now there are places still standing with resources they can use, abandoned bunkers; bunkers that people didn't make it to in time; bunkers that never stood a chance.

When they touch down near what had once been the city hall, Charles feels Erik's powers fan out alongside his own. While Erik maps out infrastructures and shelters for signs of resources, Charles looks for signs of life. He's done this enough times that he knows better than to get his hopes up. The first wave of bombs alone had wiped out much of the East Coast.

When nothing proves immediately hostile or immediately welcoming, they shuffle on to investigate. Stores first, always. If some family or other refugee does happen to be living in one of the houses, they want to avoid a confrontation for as long as possible. So far, Charles has met very few people who were impervious to his telepathy, but given how the radiation has affected him and Erik, it's always possible that they'll encounter someone who got just such a mental boost.

The doors and windows are mostly all blown out of the grocery, and he puts a hand on Erik's shoulder to step over the worst of the shattered glass and crumpled metalwork. Once they're inside they separate and head for items to be scavenged. Charles keeps Erik updated from across the store on the lists that they're working from, mentally erasing things from his internal notepad as they find them. Thankfully Sean hasn't included anything too ridiculous this time around.

Charles takes a marker to the top of each can he finds as he pulls it off the shelf, scribbling a mark on it before peeling off the label and tossing it into his bag. After a while he takes a seat, cross-legged, on the floor amongst the destroyed supplies and broken glass. He doesn't notice the stale, filtered air of his respirator's cartridge the way that he used to, or the almost overbearing weight of clothes considerably heavier than what he was used to a few months ago.

What he does notice, eventually, is the sound of glass crunching near the once-doorway they just entered through.

 _Erik?_

 _Wasn't me._

A wave of tension curls through both of them and Charles doesn't dare move. There's virtually no way to get up without making it obvious where he is, and it won't take whoever's in the doorway long to find him to begin with. Instead he exercises that invaluable muscle of his telepathy and stretches it out with tentative care. Erik is waiting like a cocked gun for his word.

The mind he finds is scared and sad—not depressed, but sad—when he brushes against it. It's emotions are youthful in their simplicity, but complex in their assessment of the situation. The weight of learned lessons and adult voices beat steadily against it, pushing it in one direction over the other until eventually a small voice calls out: “Hello?”

 _A child?_ Erik asks, incredulous. _Have we stepped into a television drama?_

 _Oh, hush._ Charles scolds. He moves to stand up, feels the jolt of fear run down his back as if it were his own, and almost flinches. “Yes, hello.”

Charles may be short, but he manages to see over the shelves of products long enough to cast his eyes on the short figure in the doorway. The boy—six at the oldest—hasn't crossed into the threshold. _Probably because of the debris,_ Charles thinks. He turns a startled, brown gaze in Charles' direction, which jerks away a second later when Erik stands up.

“I—I saw you come in here,” the boy says. Charles hasn't gleaned a name from the mud of his mind, and he doesn't intend to right away. Just knowing a person's name without having to ask is always disarming, even for children. “What's on your _face_?”

Charles has a momentary lapse back into his Oxford days, which essentially just means he thinks he had breakfast left on his chin that he'd somehow missed in a mad rush to class. When his fingers brush over the respirator he realizes that stray food is really the least of his worries these days.

“It helps us breathe,” Charles replies. It's only then that he notes the child isn't wearing one, and in his defense it isn't like seeing people walking around with respirators is common place. Seeing people at all isn't common place. “Don't your parents want you to wear one before you leave the bunker?”

He knows that the child doesn't have parents—at least not nearby—because he does another sweep. How he missed this little boy's mind to begin with is a question in itself, but not one that he has time for now.

“I don't know where my parents are,” he says, then looks down at his shoes. “They left a few days ago and...”

The boy sniffs and, by that point, he's left the aisle and converged with Erik only a few feet from him. Erik levitates the backpack of canned goods away from him so Charles has free range to step forward, carefully navigating the hazards of the former doorway, and drops in front of him.

Charles is hesitant to touch him, but he doesn't have to. The boy just peers at him, sad beneath shaggy brown hair. “Have you seen them?”

“I'm afraid not,” he replies. It's a struggle to ignore the way the edges of his carefully constructed shields are fraying; it's not the telepathic ones, but the ones that he made so he could handle living in such a devastated world. Erik's mind pushes against his, warm and soothing with just enough firmness to tell him to get a grip. “We've only just arrived here. How long have you been outside”

“Not long,” he replies. “Mom told me not to leave but I got hungry...”

 _Charles._ Erik doesn't quite whisper into his mind, but Charles can read the tense edge of it.

 _Not now._

“I see,” he says, giving the boy his full attention. “Why don't you show us where you were staying and we'll see if we can't find your parents, all right?”

The boy manages a slight smile before nodding and Charles stands up to his full height again. He twists towards Erik, who isn't looking at him so much as looking past him and into the street beyond. A flicker of something passes through his mind, something not his and not Erik's, before he walks towards him. He holds a finger up to the waiting child, a gesture to wait a moment.

Erik flashes him his palm, fingers spread. Charles stops before the word hits his mind.

 _Did you feel it that time?_ Erik asks, eyes narrowing slightly.

 _Yes, act naturally._ Charles continues forward, holds out his hand for the bag, which Erik passes to him. He slings it over his shoulder.

 _I thought we were **shielded** , Charles._ Erik hates having people tampering around in his mind, and Charles is perhaps the only exception. Even then, it's a small one, and he's really only permitted to keep up his usual presence as well as some minor mental defenses. Mental defenses that he hadn't so keenly kept up with, given how many deserted towns and cities they'd been through.

 _We're shielded enough._ Whatever mutant they have working for them has altered their optical perceptions as well as a few other key things. Erik is likely tense because it was one that knew what to grope for to switch off his range for sensing metal. When it flickered, it must have felt like walking into a wall—which meant it was just as embarrassing for him to be hit with his own element.

“Are you coming?” The child asks, and Charles tacks on points for managing to sound worried rather than exasperated. Whoever they are, they're collected enough to know what it is they're doing.

“Yes, sorry.”

They turn around to head after the child, who steps away from the debris to make room for them. Charles doesn't dare try for the kid's mind again, but from what he can tell the telepath is staying on the surface. There's a chance they might not even know that they're mutants, aside from the fact that his eyes glow and Erik's skin is somewhat tin-man like. That doesn't give them any indication of what type of mutants they're dealing with, so Charles' mental calculations still leave them with the advantage.

 _The second we step passed that door, I'm pulling up the full shields. Be ready._

 _And how exactly do I prepare for something like that?_

Charles doesn't have time to elaborate because he's too busy following through on his promise. The second both he and Erik are beyond the door, he slams up shields that—were they physical—would have made the Pentagon jealous. Naturally, though, something like being hurtled out of a mind doesn't go unnoticed by a telepath. The second he does it their perception clears, and there's only a split second before the tatter of gunfire is sounding around them. Erik catches one only a foot from striking him, and Charles might have scolded if he didn't see the purpose.

He plucks it out of the air carefully, frowning. “Tranquilizers.”

Through Erik's mind he can feel the metal backing off, retreating. It took a lot of long talks into the night to end up where they were now; which essentially was Erik _not_ yanking the hostile forces back by the fillings in their teeth. Whatever they had been expecting, then, hadn't been a telepath or someone capable of stopping their bullets.

“Well, that answers that.”

Charles is about to ask when something beats, hard, against his mental shields. It doesn't hurt, but it feels like he's been enclosed in someone's heart with their rapid pulse pounding against his mind. He can't resist raising them, just a touch, and the decision literally blows him back a few steps. It's Erik's hand on his back that catches him, stops him from toppling into the pile of glass and broken metal.

“Charles?”

“That telepath, it—it's Ms. Frost.”

Tension cuts through Erik's mind like a shard of glass when the name registers. None of them had known what happened to Shaw's band of merry mutants after the beach, but Ms. Frost had been left in government custody. There was every chance that she had perished the same as so many, he supposed. It wasn't like many of the government facilities had survived the bombings, anyway.

Before he can think about it, he's running after the trail she's laid. It's a mix of panic and exhilaration that drives him. Survivors, in any capacity, are an exciting discovery. That much better when they aren't hostile.

“Charles!”

He feels more than sees Erik darting after him, a surge of annoyance and skepticism washing through his mind. Only Erik could run with two bags full of canned food and make it so easy. They weigh nothing for him.

 _Something's wrong._ Speaking through minds is simply easier when one has to run.

 _Oh, so a mutant in the hands of the government **wasn't** good news? I'm shocked._

Any attempts at entering the minds of the retreating men is rebuffed; he hit mental barriers baring the same cold, rigid signature of Emma's shields from that day in Russia. But her mind continues to beat against his, syncing in time with his own heartbeat at the same moments that it disjointedly echoes his brainwaves. She 's stretched thin, too thin. But if he can just lock onto her—

Erik is no longer tracking the metal of the men around them; he's singularly focused on Charles and the weight of the things he carries on the lofty winds of his powers. It frees up much of Charles' concentration, no longer stretching his mind through Erik's. Still, it isn't enough.

They hit the shores of the Hudson River, a trickle compared to the sight it used to be so many months ago. Charles barely manages to skid to a stop, kicking up dirt and dust, before toppling over the shore and into the shallow water below. It wouldn't have killed him, but it sure as hell would have hurt. Erik catches up, grabs the back of his jacket and yanks him away, hard.

Ms. Frost's mental signature blips out like a star disappearing.

\------------------------ 

The world hadn't fallen to pieces that day, but it had only been a matter of time. With the world in shambles in the aftermath, what shreds of government remained around the world had been too busy scrambling to fix a beyond-repair world to care about mutants. They'd killed Shaw, but he survived in the dust and ash of a once thriving planet. That was too much of a victory for any of them.

Erik hadn't been quick to turn around in the devastation either. Despite everything that had happened, he still waited with baited breath for the ambling remains of humanity to turn on them. In the end, there wasn't much humanity left to pose a threat, but it wasn't as simple as Shaw had seemed to think. The burning world Charles had seen in Emma's mind ages ago was right, but there weren't any mutants just waiting around for a ruler to fix their problems.

In fact, Charles still wonders how many mutants are even left.

Anyone and everyone—mutant, human, animal, it didn't matter—close enough to the blast ranges were killed instantly. He'd always thought the nuclear age had accelerated mutation, but it turned out that huge, destructive explosions just spelled death for everyone close enough. Moving their lives to the bunker had been a precaution that he tried to pretend was silly at the time, like it would pass over the same way so many in-class drills had.

Except this isn't a drill.

It's life. Destroyed, burned and barely recognizable, but life all the same. Charles always tried to distance himself from his parents money, but it's only know that he's come close to understanding what it means to live without privilege.

The fact that he isn't alone is a blessing; the fact that he isn't alone but has two people—three, if they're counting Raven's childhood—who are used to living without privilege is a godsend.

But it doesn't erase the fact that he picks up fewer minds these days. The chatter of his telepathy, once expansive like a night sky full of stars that his eyes couldn't take in all at once, has died considerably. Erik's mind is the only thing in his range at the moment, and despite the comforting cool of it, even Erik can't make up for that once beautiful cacophony.

He stares at the Hudson's west shore as he catches his breath—respirators weren't really intended for sudden decisions to run like that—and then beyond. Erik shuffles around him, his thoughts turning from the rapid beat of a hummingbird's wings to the slow, graceful beat of a hawk's. His mind circles, anxious, but finds nothing that hadn't been in the town before.

The men—whoever they were and whoever they were working for—had cleared out. They're within range, he could probably pull them back, but he won't. Erik picks his fights differently, now that there are fewer fights to be picked and each one is larger than they had ever been before—Nazi hunting included.

“What did you mean earlier?” He asks, because he can tell Erik is getting to that point where he wants to snap at him that they need to keep moving. It doesn't do well to be out when it's dark, even if the world is no more dangerous for it.

“What?”

Charles doesn't look towards him. “You said something about a question being answered.”

Erik scoffs. “Oh, that. I was wondering if the government hadn't finally snapped under the pressure.”

Charles frowns, but he doesn't argue. There's nothing to argue. Just last week Erik had picked up a fuzzy radio broadcast concerning mutants. The best they could glean from it, the remaining fragments of human government in the United States were looking for mutants. They hadn't made any allusions to taking them by force, but it had been strongly urged that they come forward to 'help'. Erik had been the first to brush off the promises that they just wanted to offer protection and a combined effort to restore the world.

Charles rolls the needle between his thumb and pointer finger—Erik has helpfully bent the tip so it doesn't pose a threat—confiscated so Hank can test on it later. He begins to wonder if Erik hadn't been right.

\------------------------ 

“Is this it?” Erik asks, holding up a package of unopened Oreos. They aren't terribly damaged, but it isn't like they don't test everything before consuming it anyway.

“Yes! Brilliant. Sean will be very pleased if these turn out to be clean.”

It's been unanimously voted that they don't tell the others anything they found or didn't find on their lists until after all the food has been checked. It just seems cruel, at this stage, to get their hopes up if there's a chance it will fall through.

Charles sets the cookies in a separate pocket of his backpack, one that has a few things the others had asked for and is somewhat separated from the cans, before zipping it shut.

“We're lucky to have found some replacement filters,” Charles says as he slings the backpack over his shoulder. “We were running low.”

Erik gives a vague hum in reply, surveying the damage of the small convenience store. Pages of shredded magazines and old newspapers lie around the floor at their feet, along with the other usual destruction. Charles notices Erik's attention catch on a front page right beneath his foot. He shuffles, just a touch, to peer at the headline.

It mentions war and the word nuclear, while lesser headlines hint at the government's beginning mutant discussions. It's the last newspaper printed before everything went south, and he and Erik have both read it often enough to have everything—down to the obituaries—memorized. They'd solved the crossword more times than they can count.

There's nothing new about it anymore, but he still bumps his arm against Erik's when he gets close. It's as though he's frozen in time, slipping into the words on the page and absorbing the fact that he's still here. Charles has the same feeling sometimes, wondering how they survived it all and why they'd want to just to find the world in such a mess now. Funnily enough, sometimes a bump on the shoulder and the success of finding Oreos is all it takes.

Erik doesn't start out of his daze, but looks at him. He takes a moment to see him, his eyes hazy and expression lost behind the respirator—but Charles reads him like a book. His favorite book, in fact. Erik's mind is crystal clear with all the words in all the right places; his mind has the perfect plot and style.

“We'll be there,” he blurts out. Erik's attention sharpens, but only to blurred confusion. Charles takes a moment to organize his thoughts before continuing on again. “When the world starts up again, that is.”

“Where?” Erik snorts. “Hiding in our bunker like rats?”

Erik is angry, even in his clarity, and it's not at the humans. Any frustration, pain and fear that had once been directed at the humans was now addressed to the nebulous, uncertain world around them. There's nothing physical Erik can be mad at, not anymore, but he needs to be angry. Charles understands that; sometimes he needs to be angry, too.

“They can't rebuild any faster than we can,” he replies quietly. “In fact, they're forced to go even _slower_ than we are. That counts for something.”

He likes to think so. He _has_ to. Erik's arm around him in the night, when he wakes up thinking that they're existing for no reason, isn't enough comfort every time.

Erik doesn't reply, so Charles sighs and grabs his free hand. Their fingers collide awkwardly through the bulky gloves but he doesn't care. Awkward is mundane and mundane is so _wonderful_ in its rarity.

“We'll _be_ there, Erik, to make it safe again.” Erik finds his eyes, but it seems accidental. He promises: “For everyone.”

He swears his life on it, though it's more a weighted feeling on Erik's mind than audible words. It means more and less at the same time. It means promise, and yet that margin for failure. Charles is a telepath, not a prophet, but that's enough for Erik. It has to be.

Erik nods, once, and Charles smiles his cheeks up into the boarders of his respirator. “All right, then?”

He nods again, hefting the sack over his shoulder so they can head home. The light outside is starting to dim—as it does so early in the year—and they don't want to travel by dark. What they carry is heavy, but what burdens aren't?

\------------------------ 

They agree not to tell the children—who, when they huddle around the door like puppies awaiting treats, really _are_ children—about their encounter. Charles doesn't know if it means anything that Emma showed in allegiance with government mutant-hunters. Charles doesn't want to think about it, not now at least. Maybe later, in bed, with Erik, when he spends an hour unwinding the situation in his mind. Accepting their shared helplessness and sheltering that precious promise that they'll rebuild the world some day.

He and Erik leave the radiation-soiled clothes outside and bundle up in warm clothes after they've cleaned. Their supply of non-dangerous water is small and most is kept for drinking, but a little bit to rinse out their hair and hands is enough. They bundle in warm clothes when they're safely inside, and the food is passed off to Hank for inspection. They tell him that they found the needle near the store; they also tell him to put it on the back burner. He's to check the food first, starting with the luxury items.

But all that can wait.

For now, they gather around the radio to talk and eat dinner while Erik tampers with the signal. The volume is low—it's just background to the sound of life—but it's there. Charles leans into his side when he drops next to him, listening to Sean talk animatedly about his day. There isn't much to say, but they've all mastered the art of turning 'not much' into storybooks. It's that or insanity, and they just don't have the resources to build a padded cell, so storybooks it is.

Storybooks where chores are enthralling and salvaged textbooks are fascinating; storybooks where chapters are written on inside jokes and endings leave off with questions that promise another day. They're all storybooks, with creases and worn pages and notes scribbled in the margins. They share things that were only meant to be shared in these situations; things that happened to them just to be heard at the end of the world by people who need to hear them just to preserve their sanity.

 _Not the end of the world,_ Erik reminds him. Charles glances, but he's pointedly watching Alex and Sean bicker over a finer detail. _Just an ordinary day._


End file.
